January 22

January 22. Facebook friends, The Jourmudgeon meant to focus on science, climate and environmental news this week. But with the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary all but upon us, practically everything becomes political. To wit:
1. Astronomers are confident that they have identified a new ninth planet in our solar system in the wake of Pluto’s ignominious downgrading several years ago. They have not actually located the planet, but determined its existence based on careful computer modeling and analysis of other observed phenomena. Their most persuasive evidence, they said, comes from this year’s Republican Presidential primary campaign and its candidates. “We figured all those wing nuts had to come from somewhere,” one researcher said. “And it certainly wasn’t Earth.”
2. Data from agencies around the world showed conclusively that 2015 was the warmest year on record, and that the pace of the temperature increase is accelerating. In a rare display of unity, every Republican Presidential candidate disputed the figures and again denied global warming. Several also declared a weeklong cease fire as the Iowa caucuses loomed, and went off together on a sun-and-surf holiday in Greenland.
3. A Major Frozen Precipitation Event dumped up to 24 inches of weather clichés across a vast area from Texas to New England. The storm was blamed for eight deaths throughout the South and Mid-Atlantic regions. All of the victims were TV weather people who suffered on-air heart attacks from sheer excitement. Legendary Weather Channel Personality Jim Cantore, meanwhile, narrowly averted death by starvation after he flew to Florida and chained himself to a palm tree in New Smyrna Beach to await the storm. After being ignored for a week, Cantore was rescued by a 16-year-old surfer. “Like, the G was gettin’ ready for the wrong major weather event,” the youth explained. Congressional Republicans blamed Cantore on President Obama.
4. In Michigan, state officials finally acknowledged that residents of Flint were being exposed to high levels of lead in their drinking water. The problem began nearly two years ago, when, under state pressure to save money, the financially strapped city began buying its water from – get ready – Detroit. State officials hotly denied that there were racial overtones to the state’s turning a deaf ear to more than a year of pleas from the predominantly black municipality. Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder apologized and promised to fix things. “There is only one problem I am giving a higher priority right now,” Snyder said. “There’s a shipment of Perrier headed for Bloomfield Hills that’s stuck in traffic on Interstate 75. We’ve got to help those poor souls through this crisis.”
5. Former Vice Presidential Candidate and perennial lunatic Sarah Palin endorsed Republican frontrunner Donald Trump. Palin explained that she had been a fan “ever since he made that awesome movie where he ran, like, 4,000 miles and then his mom gave him a box of chocolates. Donald Gump represents the kind of heel-strap free enterprise that made this country great. Or something. Plus he’s the only guy in America who hasn’t gotten my daughter pregnant. Yet.”
6. Lawmakers in two states voted to ban reporters from the floors of their legislatures after someone discovered that the reporters were trying to use that access to tell the public what was really going on. In Virginia, Senate Majority Leader Thomas Norment Jr. led a successful move to banish the press to a corner of the public gallery from which it was difficult to see the chamber at work. It turned out that Norment was upset that reporters had disclosed his romance with a lobbyist. He apparently thinks the reporters’ now-obstructed view of the Senate floor will reduce the chances that he’ll be caught next time. In South Carolina, legislators sought to require any journalist who covers the government to be registered with the state. There was no word, meanwhile, on the fate of an initiative that would have required the same legislators to take a remedial high-school course in civics that included a unit on the U.S. Constitution.